Steel industry looks to jump-start Trump trade engine

Steelworkers from around the country descended on Washington this week to ask their legislators one thing: What’s happening with the Trump Administration’s Section 232 investigation?

As a candidate, President Donald Trump talked tough on trade and told blue collar voters that he would bring back the steel jobs that left their towns. And, early on his presidency, it seemed like steel would be a focus.

In his first week in office he signed a series of executive memorandums to revive the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipeline projects and directed the US Commerce Department to make sure all future pipelines built in the US are constructed out of American-made materials. Then in April, US Department of Commerce Secretary and former steel industry executive Wilbur Ross announced that his department self-initiated a Section 232 investigation on the impacts of steel imports on national security.

Leading up to the expected release of the results, the market was filled with speculation about what Section 232 may bring. For weeks it seemed like the steel industry version of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf,” except in this case there was more talk on tariff-based quotas than canines.

Then the results were delayed indefinitely, with Trump telling the Wall Street Journal in July that the administration was “waiting till we get everything finished up between healthcare and taxes and maybe even infrastructure” to make a decision on whether US national security is threatened by imports.

Suddenly the question everyone was asking was no longer “what is 232 going to bring,” but “is 232 going to happen at all?”

“The delay in acting is devastating,” United Steelworkers International Vice President Tom Conway said in a statement. “Plants are closing, jobs are lost and communities are injured while politicians delay. Now there are rumors that action is being delayed so Congress can focus on tax reform. That’s an insult to the hardworking men and women whose jobs depend on the industry.”

But it’s not just the steelworkers union calling on the administration to take action. The American Iron and Steel Institute and Steel Manufacturers Association sent a letter to Trump at the end of August, urging him to take action on 232.

“The need for action is urgent,” the letter — which was signed by more than 30 US-based steel industry executives — states. “Since the 232 investigation was announced in April, imports have continued to surge. In June, steel imports hit their highest monthly total in more than two years by capturing 30% of the US market.”

The Metals Service Center Institute also sent a letter to Trump urging swift action on Section 232 and said it’s hopeful the Commerce Department is getting close to releasing its findings. And the American Line Pipe Producers Association, which formed earlier this year and focuses on the large-diameter segment of the market, is not only looking for a resolution to the 232 investigation — it is still waiting to hear the outcome of the US pipeline memorandum signed during Trump’s first week in office.

“ALPPA strongly supports policies to promote the maximum use of large diameter line pipe made in America, using steel that is sourced domestically as well,” said Timothy Brightbill, counsel to the ALPPA. “We have plenty of capacity available today to help make that happen. We can also supply virtually all of our customers’ demands for high-quality material. If the Administration wants to increase US manufacturing and US jobs, we want to help. This is a perfect place to take rapid action.”

But while Team Steel is ready to go full force with a 232 action, downstream manufacturers are asking that the administration take its time and consider the potential consequences for US manufacturing overall.

“We are very concerned about the unintended and disastrous consequences which Section 232 restrictions on imports of basic steel products would have on our industries,” the Coalition of Downstream Steel Manufacturers and Steel Consumers said its own letter sent to Trump this month. Members of the coalition make everything from steel wire used in control cables and fasteners for military aircraft, to fabricated steel plate doors and floors for military vehicles and many types of machined and formed steel products.

And they’re quick to point out that when it comes to total jobs, the numbers are in their favor.

“Collectively, the members of our associations represent 1,003,854 jobs at 30,631 facilities, compared with 81,873 jobs at 880 facilities in the US basic steel industry,” the group’s letter states. “…It would be a tragic result for our country if, by imposing unnecessary and unwarranted restrictions on steel imports, such restrictions not only cause serious damage to our industries but also undermine the long-term viability of the US steel mills.”

While it’s clear that there are many voices arguing for many sides when it comes to 232, it remains to be seen which side Trump will settle on. Until then, the steel industry and those is serves are anxiously awaiting an outcome.

AUTHOR BIO

Justine Coyne,
Assistant editor, steel markets

Justine Coyne is an assistant editor for S&P Global Platts, covering the US market for flat-rolled and tubular steel products. She reports on the US domestic and imported steel sheet and plate markets on a daily basis and is responsible for Platts’ monthly pipe and tube price assessments. Prior to covering the US sheet market, she was responsible for Platts’ long steel and stainless steel coverage.

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Comments

jeremy at September 22, 2017 20:23

1949, when the free democratic global labor unions of the world had seperated and solvern themselves from the Communist Russia alligned WFTU World Federation of Trade Unions, the U.S. CIO started The new ICFTU International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, joined by England, France Germany, Italy and other free democratic nations of Western Europe, this is also when the US CIO campaigned for the Corporate full funded traditional retirement pension plans which was only found in the Free domestic nation labor unions, so to take corporate profits and/or revenue and put it into the hands of thousands of retired citizens for disposable income to be spent at small businesses in their lacal communities and fuel the local economy, when their no longer is this restricted low risk invested retirement plans available and all retirements are tied to the Stock market by 401k plans that can be dictated and controlled by radical far left marxist/leninist economist policy at the central reserve, the US is now headed to a 1929 economic scenario, when nobody will have an income or retirement cash reserve for economic stability, all because for U.S. to compete with foreign communist nations who’s labor unions do not provide the same free democratic nation pension economic stabilizing retirement plans.

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